A place for Innocence

I shall never forget the day Innocence returned to my life. Her (re-)birthing came on Friday, 23rd March 2018 in the hamlet of Caux, Switzerland. She came in service to a small group of people gathered to prepare and plan for the Caux Forum, due to take place in The Caux Palace, 28 June – 5 August 2018. The Caux Forum consists of a series of themed, conference gatherings destined to bring people from across the globe to grapple with and respond to some of the most troubling challenges and issues of our time.

I was first invited to Caux as a conference contributor in 2010. I have volunteered every year since then, supporting the creation and delivery of conferences ranging from ‘Leading Change for a Sustainable World’; ‘Trust and Integrity in a Global Economy’; ‘Living Peace’ and ‘Seeds of Inspiration’. It was in this place that I found my tribe, ‘Initiatives of Change’ (IofC). My connection is fulfilling, passionate, earnest, joyful, expansive and humbling.

Innocence and Eddie

Imagine, though, my very great surprise, in this context of worthy serious endeavour, when someone new showed up to play her part. She came to invite a roomful of grown-ups (some open-minded and some moderately resistant) to play with her.

In preparing for delivering at an upcoming conference in April, I was asked to send in a short video of 20-30 seconds so that conference participants could get a flavour of what they might experience if they were to join in the session I am to host with the three Pioneer Practitioners of the P6 Constellation… 60 mins later, finally I end up with a finished cut! Ironic as the the conference theme is “A cut above the rest”… and in that regard my attempts at video recording clearly needed a lot of support, feedback, chiseling and polishing…

I hope you enjoy these two cuts which emerged part way through when hysteria usurped my early dry, cardboard cut-out attempts!

Beyond the hilarity, I realise there is profound point here…. NONE of us begins being really good at anything that is new to us! We have to learn by failing and falling. We have to try and try again and again. Ask any artist, expert, sports person or sophisticated practitioner/ facilitator and you will get a similar response. Our best performances, presentations and service come only with years of dedicated practice. A wonderful elder and teacher of mine – Brad Brown – used the phrase “practice, practice until it becomes your practice.” It resounds in my mind almost daily.

This is a commitment that we in the P6 Constellation ‘Community in Practice’ (CiP) embrace wholeheartedly as we come together in community gatherings, in group supervision sessions and in supporting the trainings we run for people new to the P6 Constellation. Just as my little experiment with this video demonstrated to me (again): reaching levels of fluency and artistry in our chosen fields or disciplines comes through practice. Artistry comes not only by repetition but by succumbing to the wild, haphazard learning processes that evoke the full range of human emotions. Yes ALL our emotions have a place; all serve a purpose and to deny any of them is to deny ourselves the delights that come from fully accepting all that makes us who we are so that we can become all we have the potential to be.

So, when things don’t quite go according to plan – yes let the tears of disappointment and rage roll; because soon the tears that accompany your laughing with childlike abandon will also flow. This is what it means to be human. This is what it means to be more fully ourselves, learning to be even more fully ourselves. And when we are, we can quite literally be part of changing the world around us; bringing it into the kind of balance that attends to the well being of all… as did these wolves, when reintroduced to Yellowstone Park.

After nearly three years away immersed in life, work and PhD… finally I emerge with something to say and something to offer to the world! Although I have not finished writing up my PhD, I am happy to say I am well on the way. I hope you enjoy the read and my poems….

http://potent6.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/potent6-logo-white.jpg330328Louie Gardinerhttp://potent6.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/potent6-logo-298x300.pngLouie Gardiner2017-11-18 18:00:272018-06-11 10:28:08The Game of Life - dancing with emergence

When I first was invited to deliver a daily contribution in a week-long conference called ‘Leading Change for a Sustainable World’ in Caux, Switzerland I did not know anything much about Initiatives of Change. I have been involved ever since – every year in Caux and increasingly within the fellowship in the UK. I knew when I first walked into this building that I had a place amongst this global community and that there was something for me to be doing to support it and the people in it. Each year I contribute to different conferences and each year I meet many, many amazing people – who, in their own ways and communities, are helping to make our world a little bit better.

Caux 2010 Leading Change for a Sustainable World (LCSW) – Louie Gardiner

How very odd! As I turned to re-enter the highly constrained academic container to commence my doctoral journey – amidst other personal and professional challenges – I found myself writing poetry. I did not decide to. I did not yearn to. I simply followed juicy little threads of words and found many tumbling forth. This was the first to arrive sitting in post-graduate room at Hull University Business School:

Here you can hear from one of the P6 Constellation’s Pioneer Practitioners…

The P6 Constellation came into view in its current form in late 2012 after 30+ years in gestation in Louie. Coaches who Louie supervised sense there was something in Louie’s practice they wanted for themselves and called her out: “When are you going to offer training – so we can learn to do this for ourselves?” It took about 12 months from that invitation for Louie to synthesise and find a form that was completely coherent with the complex dynamics she (we) experience within and between ourselves as human beings. Hear what Ro has to say in her early days of coming to learn how to use the P6 Constellation for herself.